Britex landlord wants retailer to stay in its longtime home

1of2The Britex Fabrics store has occupied the space at 146 Geary St. in San Francisco for 64 years.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

2of2A sign for Britex Fabrics is seen above the shop on Geary Street, in San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

The owners of the building that houses venerable Union Square fabric retailer Britex said Tuesday that they hope to retain the store as a tenant and that their plan to convert the structure’s upper floors to office space is a backup in case lease negotiations don’t work out.

“Britex is not going out of business, and we are not asking them to leave prematurely,” said Mark Stefan, a principal of City Center Realty Partners, which owns the property with Acadia Realty Trust. “We are negotiating with Britex to remain in the building.”

The statement comes less than a week after the property owners filed a change-of-use application with the San Francisco Planning Department, saying that Britex would be leaving the four-story building at 146 Geary St. Britex has occupied the space for 64 years. The application seeks to change the use of the top three floors from retail to office and also seeks permission to “change the lettering” of the widely photographed Britex blade sign “so that it would meet the needs of the new tenant.”

But Stefan said that change-of-use applications can take years to process and that the paperwork was submitted to allow “down-the-road flexibility.”

“Our preference is to have Britex remain in the building,” he said. Last week, Acadia Realty Trust had said there were no firm plans for the building.

Neither the property owners nor store owner Sharman Spector would say how much time is left on the lease. Spector’s husband, attorney Gary Angel, said negotiations have been progressing well.

“From my perspective (the property owners) are good people and good businessmen and have been nothing but open and above board,” he said. “They are looking at all their options, which is what good business people do.”

The property owners bought the building for $38 million from a limited liability corporation controlled by the Spector family. While Sharman Spector was part of the family LLC that owned the building, she and Angel had hoped to not sell the building, which they had renovated recently.

“We have always wanted to stay here, but families have different needs over the generations,” said Angel. “Sharman is and always has been dedicated to Britex Fabrics and keeping the business going.”

Spector and Angel stressed that they are hoping to remain in their longtime home, but that if they have to leave they will reopen somewhere in the Union Square neighborhood.

“Britex is going to be here in Union Square for a long time,” Angel said.

News that Britex might be forced to relocate generated a huge response from customers urging the store and the property owner to preserve the signature business, one of the few independent, local businesses in Union Square, according to Spector.

On Monday, during Britex’s annual Columbus Day sale, hundreds of customers jammed into the narrow store, forming lines that snaked up the staircase. So many customers were asking about the news that the store might be forced out that Angel and Spector hired a friend to stand by the front door and repeatedly say, “We are not closing.”

J.K. Dineen joined the San Francisco Chronicle in 2014, focusing on real estate development for the metro group, a beat that includes land use, housing, neighborhoods, the port, retail, and city parks. Prior to joining The Chronicle, he worked for the San Francisco Business Times, the San Francisco Examiner, the New York Daily News, and a bunch of newspapers in his native Massachusetts, including the Salem Evening News and the MetroWest Daily News.

He is the author of two books: Here Tomorrow, about historic preservation in California (Heyday, 2013); and the forthcoming High Spirits (Heyday 2015), a book of essays about legacy bars of San Francisco.

A graduate of Macalester College, Dineen was a member of Teach For America’s inaugural class and taught sixth grade in Brooklyn, N.Y.